"Brenda Ann" wrote in message
...

"David Eduardo" wrote in message
news

"Telamon" wrote in message
news:telamon_spamshield-
No. It's that news/talk is mostly on AM so it is the band being
disrupted. I can't make any sense of the approach taken implemented HD
on the AM band so I'm grasping for a reason.


1. AM audiences are declining rapidly
2. AM listener age is increasing each year.
3. AM formats like news / talk, when put on FM, increase younger demos
almost instantly.
4. This shows the main reason (as does all kinds of research) for the
decline of AM is that it sounds just so bad. HD is an attempt to make it
sound better and make it viable again.


It's the fault of the INDUSTRY (both broadcast and receiver manufacturers)
that AM sounds so bad.

Hindsight is wonderful. The fact is that the licencing of too many AMs
caused the need for the NRSC 10 kHz wall, and receiver manufacturers will do
whatever it takes to cut costs. Since nearly nobody buys a radio for its AM
band capabilities, they cut corners there. The result is that there are 800
million lousy sounding radios out there insofar as AM is concerned.

Add to that fhe fact that less than one in every 7 AMs in the top 100
markets is "economically viable" because the rest do not fully cover today's
big geograpical markets, and you have a nearly dead band.